Su Ze followed the long queue and walked to Huimin Pharmacy. He only saw Huang Tiju, the pharmacy he had seen last time, and two Minzhuangs maintaining order. Huang Tiju's son was guarding a large pot and was pouring water into the pharmacy.
Customers queuing up to drink sour plum soup.
Upon seeing Su Ze, Huang Tiju quickly put down what he was doing and enthusiastically pulled Su Ze into Huimin Pharmacy.
Huang Tiju bowed for a long time and said movedly: "Thank you so much for the prescription!"
Su Ze also didn't expect that the sour plum soup would sell so well. He only saw flames coming out of the decoction shop in the back of Huimin Pharmacy. Huang Tiju had hired two new apprentices to make the soup in the back.
Huang Tiju said with a glowing face: "After my benefactor gave me the recipe, Mr. Fang bought pots and pans. From the beginning, he followed my benefactor's instructions and served soup at the door for free."
"At the beginning, people heard that it was just for ordinary soup, and no one came to queue. Later, Mr. Fang came up with a way to use sweet soup to attract street children to queue up. It became very popular the next day."
"On the third day, people who had drunk the sour plum soup came to line up one after another. If Mr. Fang hadn't invited Minzhuang from the government office to maintain order, the pharmacy would have been destroyed that day."
Su Ze was not surprised by this result. Sour plum soup is a drink that has been popular for hundreds of years, and can still be seen in modern society with extremely abundant supplies, which is enough to see the strong vitality of this drink.
Sugar itself is very popular in this era. Although Huimin Pharmacy does not sell much sugar, this rare sweetness can already make children flock to it.
Thanks to Su Ze's free marketing tactics, the sour plum soup gained a reputation in Nanping County, and business naturally improved.
Huang Tiju is really grateful to Su Ze now. With the sour plum soup recipe provided by Su Ze, Huimin Pharmacy can earn more than ten taels of silver every day.
After excluding the cost and labor, as well as the shares given to Fang Ruolan and Su Ze, we still have five or six taels of silver.
This was unimaginable in the previous Huimin Pharmacy!
With this income, Huang Tiju hired another apprentice after many years, and replenished some medicinal materials for Huimin Pharmacy, so he was finally able to treat people.
The popularity of sour plum soup has also led some people who really cannot afford to go to private hospitals to try their luck at Huimin Pharmacy.
For these people, Huang Tiju tried his best to prescribe cheap medicines without making any money from the medicinal materials. The medical treatment business of Huimin Pharmacy was also getting better and better.
Huang Tiju knew that all this was due to Su Ze. At this time, he did not regret Fang Ruolan's proposal to give Su Ze dividends. He carefully took out a cloth bag from the back room, handed it to Su Ze and said:
"My benefactor, this is your dividend."
Dividends?
Su Ze saw the black pieces of silver in the cloth bag (none of the silver circulating in the market was white), and after weighing it, there were nearly twenty taels.
Su Ze said in surprise: "When I gave the prescription to the drugstore, I didn't ask for any dividends."
Huang Tiju immediately said: "This is what Mr. Fang has given to you as the main thing. This is 20% of the pharmacy's drink profit some time ago. I was planning to send it to you to the county school after the market closes today. Isn't it just the right time for you to come?
?”
Su Ze also didn't expect that the woman in brocade clothes disguised as a man was actually a very particular person, and even took it upon herself to pay Su Ze dividends.
Anyway, the recipe was his own, and Su Ze accepted it with a smile.
"Huang Tiju, this sour plum soup sells well. Where is the herbal tea?"
Huang Tiju said awkwardly: "My dear friend, the herbal tea really couldn't be sold, so Mr. Fang took the initiative and removed the herbal tea counters."
After saying this, Huang Chengchang also took a peek at Su Ze.
Su Ze was not unhappy, but asked: "Why can't the herbal tea be sold?"
Huang Tiju said eloquently: "Herbal tea tastes bitter, and adding sugar can't cover up the bitterness. Common people can't get used to it. And because it clears away heat and detoxifies, ordinary people don't need it."
Su Ze now understood that he had made an empiricist error.
Herbal tea sells well in modern society because many people today eat meat every day and have barbecue and supper after three meals. Naturally, they need to drink herbal tea to clear away heat and detoxify.
Barbeque restaurants and hot pot restaurants sell the best herbal tea. Maybe what they sell is not herbal tea, but a healthy indulgence, the holy water that dissolves greasy food. As for whether the high-sugar canned herbal tea has the effect of clearing away heat and detoxifying, then
Only God knows.
But in the Ming Dynasty, ordinary people could not eat much meat all year round, so they had no need to clear away heat and detoxify.
Sour plum soup has no health benefits, but has a sour and sweet taste, but it is the favorite of ordinary people in the Ming Dynasty.
Su Ze reminded himself to remember this lesson. He said to Huang Tiju: "I didn't think clearly and wasted Huang Tiju's medicinal materials."
"My benefactor, sour plum soup has saved Huimin Pharmacy! We, father and son, would like to thank you very much!"
After saying this, Huang Tiju was about to kneel down again. Su Ze helped him up and said, "Don't be too polite, but I happen to have two things I want to trouble Tiju about."
"My benefactor, just say it!"
Su Ze took out the list of medicinal herbs in his pocket, handed it to Huang Tiju and said, "The first thing is that our Changning Guards want to buy some medicinal materials, but there is no way, so we ask Huang Tiju to help."
Huang Tiju picked up the list of medicinal materials and saw that it was full of common medicinal materials. He immediately said: "Easy to say, I will help you prepare these medicinal materials in the next two days and send them to Changning Guard!"
Su Ze was overjoyed when he heard this. He didn't expect that the two prescriptions he had written before would lead to such a good relationship.
There are many varieties of medicinal materials, and the quality varies greatly. It is difficult for people who are not knowledgeable to understand them.
With Huang Tiju's help, Su Ze can start practicing liver medicine skills after returning to Changning Guard.
He quickly took it into his arms and said, "Please give me an estimate of the price, and I'll give it to you according to the order."
Huang Tiju quickly took his hand and said: "What did my benefactor say? These are worthless herbs. Just accept them. If you need anything else, just tell me directly!"
In the end, Su Ze used the [Appraisal] skill to roughly estimate the price and left three taels of silver behind.
Su Ze took out his pocket again, showed the rock candy and said, "This is the rock candy made by our Changning Health Department. Does the pharmacy want it?"
Huang Tiju took out the rock candy, saw the slightly yellow rock candy and said, "My dear friend, this is too expensive and I can't use it in the sour plum soup. How about I ask Mr. Fang if you want it?"
Su Ze thought about it for a while. Ordinary people who bought sour plum soup must not be able to afford rock sugar. Mr. Fang must be quite powerful in the county. Maybe she can eat these rock sugars.
Su Ze nodded, Huang Tiju asked his son to drink six bamboo tubes of sour plum soup, and then Su Ze left Huimin Pharmacy.
In the magistrate's office, Magistrate Fang was discussing matters with the magistrate. A boy came out from the back house carrying a tea bowl and handed it to Magistrate Fang.
Looking at the dark brown herbal tea in the tea bowl, Fang Zhifu reluctantly held his nose and drank it.
Liu Tongpan is a very discerning official who is best at figuring out what is going on. In modern terms, he is an old licker in the workplace. Ever since Magistrate Fang took office, he has been licking the new Magistrate very comfortably. Now he is Magistrate Fang.
’s close lieutenant.
"Master Ming Mansion, are you feeling unwell? You are the parents of our Yanping Mansion people. You must not overwork yourself and injure your body!"
Liu Tong said he was "sincerely affectionate" and wished he could persuade the magistrate to go back to the back house and lie down now.
Magistrate Fang waved his hand and said: "It's okay. I just got a bit cold a few days ago and my teeth hurt a little. This is the herbal tea my daughter made. I drank it yesterday and it's better. But my daughter is worried and insists that I do it again."
Drink for a day.”
Liu Tongpan said half flatteringly and half sincerely: "The daughter-in-law of the royal family has a heart of benevolence and filial piety, which is really enviable by my subordinates."
Dutiful daughter? Haha.
The prefect felt that his daughter was testing the effects of herbal tea on him, but it was not easy to make a fool of himself in front of his subordinates.
Magistrate Fang just said vaguely: "I don't know where she got the recipe from, but after drinking it for a day, my teeth really don't hurt anymore."
Liu Tongpuan was also suffering from toothache. When he heard what Magistrate Fang said, he immediately said: "Master Mingfu, can you give me a copy of the prescription? To be honest, my toothache has been hurting these days."
Liu Tongpan immediately said: "But the prescription belongs to the young master of the house. I heard that your beloved loves reading. I have a rare book of Song Dynasty here to exchange for this prescription to treat toothache."
Compared with Su Ze, Liu Tong's gift-giving skills are at least level 10.
The magistrate's eyes lit up when he heard about rare books from the Song Dynasty.
The so-called rare books refer to those ancient books with good editions, good binding, long history, little circulation, and have academic and historical value.
People in the Ming Dynasty loved to collect books, and the first-class books were naturally bamboo slips from the Qin and Han dynasties and manuscripts from the Han and Tang dynasties.
However, they are all top-notch antiques. Except for the royal family and the top civil servants, ordinary people cannot afford them.
Due to the popularization of woodblock printing technology in the Song Dynasty, it was easier to spread books than in the Han and Tang Dynasties, and there were official and private bookstores specializing in printing books, so the Song Dynasty had the most ancient books.
Ordinary officials and scholars have made it a trend to collect better-preserved books printed in the Song Dynasty.
Magistrate Fang was also a good scholar, so he agreed immediately after hearing this.
After calling the servant, Magistrate Fang coughed and said, "Did you hear it just now? Tell the lady and ask her to copy the prescription to Liu Tongxian."
After a while, the boy came back with two bamboo tubes.
He knelt down and held up the bamboo tube and said: "Sir, the lady said that the kitchen has brewed a large pot of herbal tea. Lord Tongpan can just drink it directly. If you want more tomorrow, I can send someone to Tongpan's house.
"
Magistrate Fang was a little displeased, but thinking of his precious daughter's temper, he had no choice but to say: "What the little girl said makes sense. I watched her tinkering for several days to cure my toothache. I guess the prescription is quite complicated. Since there are
Liu Tongpan, you can just take the herbal tea back and drink it."
Liu Tongpan was not angry at all, but said cheerfully: "The young master of the Ming family has thought carefully! It saves my subordinates the trouble of boiling medicine, and only troubles the young master."
"The rare book of the Song Dynasty will send someone to deliver it to you when I get back."
After saying this, Judge Liu Tong left the prefect's Yamen holding the bamboo tube.
Fang Ruolan was still working tirelessly to promote herbal tea, and Su Ze led the horse to the county school. The county school now was much more orderly than when they came here.
The messy carriages at the door dispersed. Su Ze said hello to his disciples, led the horse and entered the county school.
The students from Yanping Academy and Fu were still there, but unlike last time, these students were all in a hurry and did not gather together in twos and threes to brag and chat like the last time they came. This made Su Ze very confused.
You must know that the students of Yanping Academy and the students of the prefecture are basically scholars, which means that the young people with the highest academic qualifications in Yanping Prefecture are all gathered in the small county school. It should be as noisy as the universities of later generations.
The county school was like this last time. Students gathered in small groups to talk loudly or debate with each other, making the entire county school as noisy as a vegetable market.
But the atmosphere in the county school today was completely different. The students were all frowning and hurriedly walking around with their books in their hands, and no one was seen talking to each other on the roadside.
Could it be that Hai Rui was responsible for the rectification? It's impossible. Hai Rui is just a county school teacher. How can he control the students of the academy and the students of the government?
Su Ze arrived at the dormitory with questions. Chen Chaoyuan, who lives in the county town, had already arrived at the dormitory first. After the two exchanged pleasantries, Su Ze couldn't help but ask:
"Brother Chen, why is the atmosphere in the county school so weird today? What happened?"
Chen Chaoyuan said with a smile: "There has been a great literary event in Nanping County recently, and all the students in the county schools are excited."
"What literary event?"
"Chen Shanchang of Yanping Academy has a good friend who traveled to this county. This gentleman is also an important person in the literary world recently. Since he is a scholar, he naturally wants to do something elegant in the literary world."
Su Ze understood what Chen Chaoyuan meant. He probably invited some great scholar to give lectures or something.
But what does this have to do with ordinary scholars?
Chen Chaoyuan continued: "The new Mr. Tuohu is a well-known musical master in the country, and he is especially good at coaching theater troupes. This time, Mr. Tuohu, a distinguished scholar in the literary world, took out three unique copies of the Song Dynasty as a bonus and asked all the scholars in the city to write one.
Come out with a play."
"Drama?"
Chen Chaoyuan nodded and said: "Mr. Tuohu said, Northern and Southern operas, legend plays can be used, and the subject matter is not limited. If it comes first, Mr. Tuohu's troupe will directly rehearse it. I heard that Mr. Tuohu will continue to go south. If
If the troupe keeps singing all the way, it will really become famous in the southeast!"
"It's a pity that I don't know music, otherwise I would have wanted to participate."
Su Ze was stunned for a moment. Isn't this a competition for script essays? Are all the intellectuals of the Ming Dynasty having such a good time?
However, during the mid- to late Ming Dynasty, culture flourished and drama also experienced tremendous development.
Northern Opera, also known as Yuan Zaju, is a type of drama that has flourished since the Yuan Dynasty. For example, the famous "The Injustice of Dou E" is a Yuan Zaju. However, the structural requirements of Yuan Zaju are relatively high, and must be composed of four pieces, one wedge, and one lead singer.
Nowadays, it is gradually replaced by Nan Opera and Legend Opera.
Among them, Nan Opera is a kind of drama originated in Zhejiang. Its structure is freer than that of Zaju. In addition to the lead singer, "Bin Bai" (narration) is added to better express the plot.
The Legend Opera is a long-form opera that combines northern and southern operas. The genre is freer and the episodes vary in length, but the plot is more complete. It is now very popular among scholars in the south of the Yangtze River.
Some theater troupes rehearsing legendary plays are packed with seats as soon as the performance is performed. During the climax of the song, some people throw gold and silver on the stage, and some chase the actors and treat them as guests of honor. They are treated like contemporary stars.
Su Ze asked doubtfully: "Isn't this dynasty banning opera? Why is Mr. Tuohu still openly recruiting for opera?"
Chen Chaoyuan said with a smile: "As long as the ancestors are not insulted in the play, no one will ban the theater. There is still a theater troupe in Yange's hometown today."
Well, it is indeed the ancestral teaching of Schrödinger of the Ming Dynasty.